Thailand nabs Turkish suspect over Bangkok bombing

Police in Thailand say they have arrested a Turkish national in connection with a deadly bomb attack in the country’s capital city of Bangkok last week.

According to local media on Saturday, Thailand’s security forces detained the man in his apartment in Nong Chok district in the eastern outskirts of the capital.

“We have detained one person,” General Chaktip Chaijinda, Thailand’s deputy national police chief, said in a televised address earlier, adding, “We have found components of bomb-making materials in his apartment and I am confident that he is likely involved with the bomb attack.”

The coffin of a victim of the bombing in Bangkok is carried into her home in Penang, Malaysia, August 20, 2015. (Photo by AP)

Following the deadly attack, Thailand’s police, based on the information received from security cameras at the site of the incident, launched an extensive operation to find a man in a yellow T-shirt, who left a bag at the shrine just moments before the fatal explosion.

It is “not yet clear” if the arrested man is the same suspect caught on security captures, said Chaktip.

Colonel Banphot Phunphien, a spokesman of the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), later confirmed that the suspect is a Turkish national.

“He carries many passports. It’s unusual how he carries so many passports,” Banphot added.

Thailand has been witnessing unrest since its powerful generals took the law into their own hands in a May 2014 coup following the ouster of former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s government, which had faced months of protests.